I will focus on training, education and employment services. At a time of rising unemployment, an issue that will become difficult to address is long-term unemployment. As Mr. Philip O'Connor stated, we need to take action now to address these issues to ensure we do not end up with long-term unemployment becoming the entrenched problem it was back in the 1980s and early 1990s. Yesterday, the quarterly national household survey released its latest report which covers the months from July to September. It shows that long-term unemployment is now 3.2%. For most of this decade it remained at under 2% — roughly between 1.3% and 1.7%. Unemployment is rising and that is an issue we need to focus on. We must look at ways to address it.
It is extremely important that employment services and training and education services are built around the people who need them and are designed to meet their needs. Tools such as profiling could be used to target resources more effectively. We need good career guidance and this is particularly important at this time of limited resources, so that people end up in the right courses that match their interests and abilities but also offer future opportunities for them. I would hate to see in a year or two that we have created jobs, but still there are hundreds of thousands of people unemployed because the two do not go together when people go on the wrong education and training programmes. We need to get that right. We need to examine how to maximise outcomes from programmes and not minimise input costs.
With the current crisis in the public finances, the focus is on minimising input costs. If we do not start to look at how we ensure optimal outcomes, we will have significant issues to address in 2010 and beyond. The reality is that participation in mainstream education secures better employment outcomes for people and there is plenty of research to back that up. We need to look at that. What was quite striking about budget 2010 was that the Minister announced that there were additional training and education places but he did not highlight the fact that under the heading of education and science, some of the support grants, including the back to education allowance for people to go back to college or into VTOS, were cut. Those grants were small enough. If we are to have a smart economy, people will need higher levels of formal education to access those jobs. It seems incongruous that we have this vision and on the other hand we are taking away the supports. That does not seem to be a sensible way to proceed.
Unemployed people have raised the issue of quality provision. They have a very strong sense that they do not get good information when they engage with employment services. They invariably feel they are being sent on a course to put a bum on a seat rather than a course that will get them somewhere. It is crucial that unemployed people get good career guidance so that they can talk out their options with staff and end up on the correct course for them. Training must enhance participants' employability. There is a sense that they end up doing a range of courses. I met a young lady who wanted to get a job and was going on courses that did not seem to relate to each other. When employment picks up again, will an employer think she cannot stick at something, while in fact she was trying to do the right thing. Progression routes are crucial. It is an issue we did not tackle when we should have during the Celtic tiger years. People went on training and employment programmes but did not successfully access sustainable employment. That is an issue we must address and it is still a challenge facing community employment. If we do not plan the work placement programme properly, it will present as an issue in the years to come. We must ensure we tease this out and this will require working across the employment, social welfare and education training services, which must all talk to each other so that people can progress from one to the next and onwards.
An issue which has presented recently concerns one area from which additional training places have come; namely, the breaking up by FÁS of longer courses into smaller modules. People go on these and subsequently find things very difficult because either they do not progress to another education or training programme or they do not find a job, which is extremely difficult in the current climate, as Mr. O'Connor outlined. They must then go back on their welfare payments and there are issues in that regard. The transition from welfare into education or training and employment and back needs to be made smoother. There is a challenge here and we must be realistic about it.
Another striking feature of yesterday's quarterly national household survey was the drop of more than 200,000 in the number of people in full-time employment. Part-time, contract or piecemeal work is more likely to come on stream than full-time employment and we must sort out how people move from one to another and back so that they are not discouraged from taking up education or training and employment because of that dynamic.
In terms of investment, there is a need to improve the skill levels of the most vulnerable sectors and to maintain investment in education and training. As in previous budgets, in budget 2010 there were swings and roundabouts and the robbing of Peter to pay Paul. We need to address that.
The national skills strategy was published two years ago — or a report calling for same that metamorphosed into the strategy. The action implementation plan has not been published yet and is badly needed. If ever we needed to ensure we spend money in the right place it is now, when we have less of it. That is badly needed.
Flexibility in education and training provision is crucial. Another striking feature of the budget, particularly for younger people, was the cut in their welfare payment. If they go on an education or training programme they will get the full allowance but we feel strongly the payment should not have been cut. A very negative message was sent to young people. We will need this generation to get Ireland back on its feet.
Flexibility and choice are vital. A question unemployed people regularly raise with us is: "Why do they not run the good courses more often?" When a course has a good reputation far more people will seek to go on it than there will be places for. Very often when there are places it will be because good information did not go out about the course concerning availability, what it is about and what its potential is, or else word will have gone out among people that it is not a good course and will not get them anywhere. Choice and flexibility are crucial to ensure people end up well. Forcing people onto courses they do not want to go on or that will not get them anywhere is not a good use of resources, especially in the current climate.
From a practical point of view, we are very concerned about last week's budget in which social welfare payments were cut. We called for this not to happen and we wish the Social Welfare Bill had not been raced through the Dáil. The other striking thing that emerged concerns community employment, CE, for which the cut was even greater. There is the loss in terms of the social welfare element but also the training element that went with the participant, which means that €24.40 has been cut back to €20 and CE participants are losing €12.70. The loss of 5.6% of their income has had a bigger impact and is most regrettable. In terms of encouraging participation that is a very regrettable move.